Weekend tech reading: First smartphone turns 20, photorealism in UE4, the state of Android updates

First smartphone turns 20: Fun facts about Simon A tip of the hat to Simon, long referenced as the first smartphone. It went on sale to the public on August 16, 1994 and packed a touchscreen, email capability and more, paving the way for our modern-day wondergadgets. Here's a look at some of Simon's history. IBM and BellSouth first showed Simon off in late 1992. It was code-named "Angler" and was unveiled at the fall COMDEX convention in Vegas, but wouldn’t be available to purchase by consumers until August 16, 1994. Time

AMD Catalyst 13.9 WHQL to 14.7 RC benchmark comparison -- 4% overall increase with interesting anomaly Drivers are very interesting things; they usually work out of sight but are just as important as the GPU itself. It is with these thoughts in mind that I would like to post something very interesting today: a benchmark comparison (courtesy of DG Lee over at IYD.KR) of all the driver releases between and including Catalyst 13.9 WHQL and 14.7 RC. I would also like to point out a very interesting anomaly that I noticed in the benchmarks.WCCF

Game dev harassment remains as bad as it was a year ago It's been a year since a new kind of threat to game development seemed to reach a fevered pitch: Fans harassing the people who make the games they so love. Last year, Polygon spoke to developers, both named and those who wished to remain anonymous, about the increasing regularity of that harassment and how, for some, it was the reason they left the game industry. Polygon (also, Because you're worthless: The dark side of indie PR)

The state of Android updates: Who's fast, who's slow, and why Android 4.4, KitKat was released on October 31, 2013, or at least, that's what you can say about onedevice: the Nexus 5. For the rest of the ecosystem, the date you got KitKat -- if you got KitKat -- varied wildly depending on your device, OEM, and carrier. For every Android update, Google's release of code to OEMs starts an industry-wide race to get the new enhancements out to customers.Ars Technica

How to catch brain waves in a net Last year, an epilepsy patient awaiting brain surgery at the renowned Johns Hopkins Hospital occupied her time with an unusual activity. While doctors and neuroscientists clustered around, she repeatedly reached toward a video screen, which showed a small orange ball on a table. As she extended her hand, a robotic arm across the room also reached forward and grasped the actual orange ball on the actual table. IEEE Spectrum

Would you pay £140 a year for an ad-free web? An ad-free internet would cost each user at least £140 a year – a sum that the vast majority of UK web users say they would never pay, according to new research. Video ad platform Ebuzzing calculated the average 'value' of each web user by dividing the amount of money spent on digital advertising in the UK in 2013 (£6.4 billion) by the number of UK web users (45 million).The Telegraph

The look of funny: How the Onion's art department works An Onion article titled "New Law Enforcement Robot Can Wield Excessive Force Of 5 Human Officers" includes a remarkable bit of artwork, which you can see above: a muscled, armored tank-like robot armed with guns and probes and sprays and hammers, using all its weaponry to attack the business-casual-clad attendees of a beige-carpet trade show. Fast Company

New research presents an improved method to let computers know you are human CAPTCHA services that require users to recognize and type in static distorted characters may be a method of the past, according to studies published by researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. CAPTCHAs represent a security mechanism that is often seen as a necessary hassle by Web services providers... UAB

Fixed that for you: How PS3 can go out in style The PlayStation 4 is well and truly here, but that doesn’t mean Sony's last gen console is old news. In fact, with its massive back catalogue of blockbuster titles dating back to 2006, iconic controller and PlayStation Classics library, there’s every reason to think the PS3 will last as long as its predecessor, which sold for 13 years before finally being discontinued. Redbull

Voyager map details Neptune's strange moon Triton NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft gave humanity its first close-up look at Neptune and its moon Triton in the summer of 1989. Like an old film, Voyager's historic footage of Triton has been "restored" and used to construct the best-ever global color map of that strange moon. NASA (also, Scientists find traces of sea plankton on ISS surface)

Why I've said goodbye to mobile in favor of PC I am fed up with the whole mobile/tablet gaming market. I've worked hard for three years and released two games to almost every mobile device you can think of. Never again. From now on I am focusing all my development resources on the PC. Frankly, I should have started there to begin with. Gamasutra

Recovering data from a failed Synology NAS It was bound to happen. After 4+ years of running multiple NAS units 24x7, I finally ended up in a situation that brought my data availability to a complete halt. Even though I perform RAID rebuild as part of every NAS evaluation, I have never had the necessity to do one in the course of regular usage. AnandTech

Photorealism in Unreal Engine 4 in real-time: A sneak peek at next-gen games graphics If you were wondering what kind of graphics we can expect from true next-gen games on the Xbox One, PS4, and PC, feast your eyes on the photorealistic visual wizardry of French artist Koola. ExtremeTech

Build your first gaming PC: 5 tips from a first-time builder Hey everyone, my name is Joe, Reviews Editor for TechRadar, and I've never built a PC. Until now. Yes, I work for a technology media outlet and have never tangled my fingers in SATA cables. This is my shame. Tech Radar

How collaborative social blocking could bring sanity to social networks Platforms such as Twitter have been curiously uneager to deal with harassers, trolls and other online ne'er-do-wells. Glenn Fleishman on the latest third-party tools created to bring power back to the users. BoingBoing